You owe it to yourself to take control of your passwords. And it's easier than you might think. Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

As we store more and more of our information digitally, it becomes more important than ever to make sure our data is safeguarded. To ensure security, you should always use strong and unique passwords.

Password manager apps aren’t hard to use, and once you get started, they actually offer you more convenience than any other way of maintaining and storing passwords. Not convinced? Let me help you understand….

On the Mac, 1Password is a perfect Swiss Army Knife of tools for the forgetful and lazy, guaranteeing that they never have type in a password, address field, or credit card number into an online form ever again.

But on iOS, 1Password has been a more convoluted thing. Lacking deep integration with other apps, 1Password for iOS has never been as good as it’s Mac counterpart. But with iOS 8, that’s about to change, thanks to a 1Password app extension that any third-party app can use.

1Password is one third-party app that will directly benefit from Extensibility and Apple’s Touch ID API, two features coming in iOS 8 that will let apps work together like never before.

Made by Canadian app company AgileBits, 1Password acts like a digital vault for storing all your Web logins and sensitive data. 1Password for iOS 8 is already in beta, and AgileBits has taken advantage of Touch ID and the ability to directly integrate with Safari. The result is a frictionless experience that demonstrates how iOS 8 is ushering in a new era of powerful, desktop-class mobile apps.

When the developers at AgileBits showed me 1Password’s highly anticipated iOS 7 redesign at Macworld last month, I naturally asked when it would come out. They were cagey, but I was told to expect some “interesting things soon.” The day has finally arrived, and 1Password’s biggest update since version 4.0 is out in the App Store.

Redesigned to match the cleaner aesthetics of iOS 7, 1Password 4.5 finally brings support for switching between multiple vaults. The feature was previously limited to the Mac, but now the iOS app can switch between vaults from within its settings.

1Password 4.5 also includes notable improvements to its built-in browser, better integration with its desktop counterpart (which has also been updated), and some other welcomed features.

1Password, the popular password manager from AgileBits, has today been updated to finally support Wi-Fi syncing between Mac and iOS devices. The update also adds the ability to change the built-in browser’s user agent, and improves support for the latest iOS 7 firmware.